has at first no traceable connection with it. It is a
vast, high, modernised, heavily decorated church, dimly
lighted at all times, I should suppose, and enriched
by the shades of evening at the time I looked into it.
I perceived that it consisted mainly of a large square,
beneath a dome, in the centre of which a single person
- a lady - was praying with the utmost absorption.
The manner of access to the church interposed such
an obstacle to the outer profanities that I had a sense
of intruding, and presently withdrew, carrying with me
a picture of the, vast, still interior, the gilded roof
gleaming in the twilight, and the solitary worshipper.
What was she praying for, and was she not almost
afraid to remain there alone?

For the rest, the picturesque at Toulouse consists
principally of the walk beside the Garonne, which is
spanned, to the faubourg of Saint-Cyprien, by a stout
brick bridge. This hapless suburb, the baseness of
whose site is noticeable, lay for days under the water
at the time of the last inundations. The Garonne
had almost mounted to the roofs of the houses, and
the place continues to present a blighted, frightened
look. Two or three persons, with whom I had some
conversation, spoke of that time as a memory of horror.
I have not done with my Italian comparisons; I shall
never have done with them. I am therefore free to
say that in the way in which Toulouse looks out on
the Garonne there was something that reminded me
vaguely of the way in which Pisa looks out on the